E-mail back-up keeps Arup on move

Engineering consultant Arup Group has rolled out back-up technology to ensure that 800 engineering specialists can continue to receive e-mails in the event of a server failure.

The company said the technology ensures it does not miss contract deadlines through e-mail failure.

“It has given us the peace of mind that in the event a primary server went down, we could get 800-plus users around the globe up and running within quarter of an hour, with no loss of data,” said Nizam Ali, IT consultant.

Arup decided to install the back-up software after a system failure last year meant it missed bidding for a major contract. After evaluating alternatives, it decided to install Neverfail across its London and New York offices.

The software takes a mirror copy of the company’s Blackberry e-mail servers, and is designed to automatically take over if there is a problem with the server.

The Neverfail system has already paid for itself by freeing up weeks of IT staff time that would be needed to recover from a serious failure, Arup said.

“We had an issue in the UK where we were upgrading our Exchange server and somehow the database got out of synchronisation. We had to find everyone in the UK with Blackberries to get them to resynchronise their devices,” said Ali.

Because Arup’s consultants are frequently travelling, it was over two months before all UK staff had their Blackberries resychronised.

The system has also simplified maintenance of the firm’s Blackberry servers. IT staff would have to carry out maintenance out of hours, when e-mail traffic was at a minimum. Now they can use the Neverfail back-up to perform maintenance at any time, said Ali.

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